


Breathless

by Writcraft



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Broken Harry, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:44:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writcraft/pseuds/Writcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can only run so far before your memories begin to catch up</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathless

Run as fast as you can. 

Find a place where winter is summer and the frigid cold of England is left far behind.

Feel the breath catch in your lungs and the burn of the smoke from the midnight bonfire. Dance with the surfers and take a crisp bottle of beer from a short, stubby glass which is cool to the touch. 

Drink it.

Watch him watching you and give him a kiss. Swallow up his exhales of a name that isn’t yours. Push back those memories of a time when kisses tasted like whisky and the past. 

Kiss him again.

Slide your hands into soft blond curls and try to forget when the hair beneath your fingers was oil-slick and raven black. 

You can take him to bed, if you like. He’s happy to be with you and he’s sweet, hoppy and gorgeous. You can fuck him on those bland white cotton sheets on a creaky bunk bed and hope that nobody sees or hears.

You can do anything you want.

Just try to remember how to breathe.

*

Buy a Muggle camera. Count your lucky stars the exchange rate in Knuts and Galleons works in your favour. Don’t get one of the fancy ones. Get one of the old ones that don’t need electricity or computers.

You just need a film and an open road.

Leave the beaches of Bondi far behind. Pack up the glow-in-the-dark sticks of face paint and keep the leather bracelet from Sam the surfer wrapped around your wrist to remind you of someone else’s blue-eyed stare.

Take your camera to urban cities and photograph anti-capitalist graffiti until you build a portfolio of cracked bricks and rainbow bright colours. Watch the world through a lens and take care not to let the world watch you back. 

See how broken everything is through your black and white filters and slow to develop film. Take portraits throughout the spring of people with nowhere else to go. 

Find a coffee shop somewhere in Brooklyn. Sit on a rickety stool and learn the difference between a mocha and a latte. Don’t look at the boy with the wide smile and the ink-black hair. Looks like a heartbreaker, that one. Take the number he slides across the table and promise to call, but don’t.

Go back to your room when the skyscrapers of New York City crowd too close.

Let yourself sleep while your heart settles into the rhythmic drum of _forget, forget, forget_.

*

Find the best of summer on Fire Island. The sea air and the salty spray on your tongue. Savour it. This is what living is, the sun-hot sand on your toes and the heat on your back.

Make plans for next summer with the boys dancing bare chested in the sweaty, musky heat of long summer nights. Make promises you don’t intend to keep. Pretend you’re here for good but keep your distance. Give them a story about a gap year and a university somewhere in Scotland.

Let them tell you your accent is _adorable_.

Let them kiss you, if you want. Let yourself have a moment of dizzying pleasure pressed against another hard body as you reach a desperate completion in the palm of their hand.

Slip away before the stars come out.

Try not to cry when you’re by yourself looking at the moon.

Sweat, somebody else’s lips, salt, tears and sea-spray.

Remember the taste of them.

Tomorrow they’ll be gone.

*

Experiment with your camera. Remember how beautiful the world can be when the photos come out in vibrant streaks of colour; sunsets casting their vivid glow over the autumn skies.

Never visit the same place twice. Never get too close, or too tangled up in the affairs of the people you fleetingly call your friends. 

Let the autumn pass with leaves and rainfall.

Welcome another New Year with the crowds in Times Square until the noise is too loud, the people too excitable and the music and parties only remind you that you’ve never been more alone.

*

Treat yourself to a glorious hotel suite with views of the bright lights of the Big Apple.

Sleep on white satin sheets and order room service. Chocolate, champagne and roses.

Valentine’s Day for one.

Close your eyes when your lips are chocolate rich and your stomach full of champagne and the knot which never quite unfurls.

Breathe in and out and try not to dream of him.

*

Wake to the slide of a familiar hand through your hair.

Look at him. 

_Look at him._

Let the gasp of his name fall from your lips as you crowd close in warm, familiar arms.

 _Severus_.

Kiss him, because there’s a good chance this is a dream. Better make it a good one. Feel it when he kisses you back. Feel it in your bones. Let your body shake and tremble in his embrace and never be embarrassed by how much you want, how much you _need_.

Can’t you feel that he needs it too? His hands shake with it. His eyes are dark flames with it. His sentences are full of subtext you’re finally ready to understand.

Let him push you back on the bed. Don’t even care about the dark chocolate cake which smears on the sheets. You don’t have a wand anymore? Don’t worry. He does. 

Run your fingers along his shoulders. Feel every bump in his spine and drag your knuckles across his skin. Hear the gasp of uncertain pleasure and the roughness when he says your name.

 _Harry_.

Tell him you’re sorry. Catch the perspiration on his collarbone with the tip of your tongue and remember the taste of his skin against yours. Breathe in the warmth in the curve of his elbow, stroke your fingers over the mark on his forearm until he trembles to the touch. Give him every pleasure and hear in the way he says your name his unexpected surprise, his wary want and his willingness – perhaps – to try again.

Tell him you love him, because you can say anything you like in your dream. Because it’s your dream you think you hear him whisper it back, in shattered syllables as his lips mouth against your neck.

Tell him you wish he was really here and how you never want the night to end. Listen to him chuckle, warm and rich like the chocolate on your kisses. He thinks you’re daft, even in your dreams.

“I _am_ here.”

God. Wish for it to be true. Today, of all days. Tonight, of all nights. 

Let yourself believe perhaps it really is.

Lose yourself in filthy, brilliant heart-shaking kisses. Open your mouth to him, slide your tongue against his. Gasp out every last breathless promise into the glorious, multi-coloured night. Know the stroke of his fingers inside you again. Push back against him when he takes you hard and fast as if you’re the air he needs to breathe.  


Feel whole again. Let the magic rush through your veins until you want to weep with the power which ebbs and flows through your blood, making your skin hot and tingly. 

Choke on your words when you try to speak. Let him steady you with long fingers and cool palms against your cheek, your forehead. Kiss the thumb which strokes across your lips. Taste the beat of his heart and the salty flavour of him as if he’s sea, air and a transient, fleeting thing which won’t be there tomorrow.

Curl up beside him and let your tears leak onto his pale chest, while his hands tangle in your hair and he makes you promises beneath the early morning sunrise.

Fight sleep.

Fight it with your last breath.

Everything always disappears in the morning.

*

Wake to the cool February sunlight and shiver beneath the sheets.

Turn your face to the pillow where you find the chocolate stains and the heady, musky scent of him against the crisp white sheets.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

“Severus?”

“Hmm?” 

“Am I still dreaming?”

“You never were.”

His breath, warm and damp in your ear. The promise of his kisses hot against your skin. The bruise of his fingers against your hips not just faded memories of a time when neither of you had enough fight left to be better. 

“I ran away.”

“Yes.” His lips moving against your neck, strong hands turning you in his arms. His eyes, coal-black but warm in a way which makes your heart flutter and clench. “As did I.”  


Swallow, because it wasn’t only him you had to run from and everything else feels cold and desperate. Lost friends, broken bodies and shattered midnight sky rich with greens and reds. Your heart beats harder and you’re panicking and pushing until his fingers circle your wrists and he pulls you close.

“Are you going to take me back there?”

Feel his fingers tighten around your wrists. Wrap yourself around him and breathe in his familiar scent until the world stops spinning and everything is calm again. Let the hum of magic soothe you and try not to remember. Try _not_ to remember.

“Eventually. Not yet. I had rather hoped I might be allowed to join you on your travels for a while.”

Tell him yes. Let him know you need him. Give him everything he gives to you and more. Kiss him, a slow, morning, here’s to the future sort of kiss. Kiss him languid, hard and firm. Kiss him deep and sink into it until you’re both a little breathless and he’s grumbling about the chocolate on the sheets and the sound of the traffic outside.

Let him kiss you back when he’s said his piece. Have him kiss your fear away and wash your hair in the shower and stroke his fingers over every knot in your muscles. Let him use magic. Just a little, while he keeps you steady with strokes of his thumb against your palm. 

Breathe again when the wand disappears.

In and out.

Kiss his cheek and begin to remember.

How easy breathing used to be.


End file.
